The Associated Press
CHATEAUROUX, France Vincent Hancock of the United States beat his student Conner Prince to capture his fourth Olympic gold medal in men’s skeet, winning Saturday at the Paris Games.
Hancock coaches Prince, a first-time Olympian, and turned round to share a hug with his silver medal-winning student after making his last two shots to ensure the gold. He hit 58 out of 60 shots to Prince’s 57.
Hancock won skeet gold at the Olympics in 2008, 2012 and 2021 and is the only skeet shooter to take the Olympic gold more than once.
“That’ll never get tiring. For me it’s something that I work for for four years,” Hancock said. “At this point, it just seems to be the luck of the draw for me. I do the best that I can and just hope and pray for the best.”
Shooters are eliminated one by one in the finals, and when Taiwan shooter Lee Meng-yuan ended in bronze-medal position, that set up a fight for the gold between Hancock and Prince, who grinned and shook hands.
Hancock had two misses close together midway through the competition but rallied to hit every one of his last 26 targets. Prince missed one shot from his final sequence of four to give Hancock the chance to close out the win.
“That last pass, where I knew he and I were 1-2, I didn’t have as much adrenaline as I had at the beginning of the final,” Prince said.
“I wouldn’t say it wore off. It was just more of a relief on that last pass, just because I knew that we did it. Obviously I wanted to get gold, but I don’t care. He and I went 1-2 like we were talking about doing. The fact that we made it reality is remarkable.”
There’s another shot at a medal in the mixed team skeet event Monday. Hancock, a 35-year-old from Texas, also said he’ll chase a fifth individual gold medal in four years in Los Angeles.
“I’m definitely intending on going through LA 2028. That will probably be my last one,” Hancock said. “I considered this one being my last, but the opportunity to represent the U.S. on U.S. soil in LA is just too good to turn it down.”
The U.S. now has three medals in shooting at the Paris Olympics after waiting until Friday for Sagen Maddalena to win the team’s first, a silver in women’s 50-meter three positions rifle.
Earlier, Yang Jiin became the third South Korean woman to win a shooting gold medal in Paris after she edged Camille Jedrzejewski of France in a tense tiebreaker.
Yang won the shoot-off 4-1 after both finished the competition tied on 37 hits. Veronika Major took the bronze for Hungary after winning her own shoot-off with two-time bronze medalist Manu Bhaker of India.
